UGA alumna Doreen Stiles Poitevint of Bainbridge, sworn in earlier this month, was appointed to an at-large seat vacated by Atlanta businessman Hilton Howell, whose term had expired. Chair-elect of the Bainbridge College Foundation Board, Poitevint received her bachelor’s, master’s and specialist’s degrees in education from UGA in 1969, 1970 and 1975, respectively.

Julie Ewing Hunt of Tifton also was sworn in to her first full term on the board of regents. She joined the board in 2003 to finish the unexpired term of her late husband, John.


Award-winning poet reads from her work
Poet Laure-Anne Bosselaar will read from her work Jan. 29 as part of the Georgia Poetry Series, a consortium of colleges and universities that brings poets of national reputation to the state each year. Her reading, which begins at 4 p.m. in 261 Park Hall, will be followed by a question-and-answer period as well as a book sale and signing.

Bosselaar grew up in Belgium where she worked as a talk-show hostess, commentator and voice-over artist for Belgian and Luxembourg Radio and Television. She is the author of Artémis, a collection of French poems, published in Belgium. She moved to the United States in 1987.

Her first collection in English, The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, was published by BOA Editions. This book was a finalist for the Walt Whitman Award, the National Poetry Series, the Ohio State University Prize and the Nicholas Roerich Prize. Her second book of poems, Small Gods of Grief, also published by BOA Editions, won the Isabella Gardner Prize for Poetry in 2001.

Bosselaar, along with her husband poet Kurt Brown, co-edited Night Out: Poems about Hotels, Motels, Restaurants and Bars, and edited Outsiders: Poems about Rebels, Exiles and Renegades as well as Urban Nature: Poems about Wildlife in the City (all from Milkweed Editions). Fluent in four languages, she is currently translating American poetry into French and Flemish poetry into English.

She currently teaches a graduate poetry workshop at the Sarah Lawrence College M.F.A. program in New York and is on the faculty of the Stonecoast Low Residency M.F.A. in Creative Writing Program offered by the University of Southern Maine.


Poll: It’s okay to mix religion, government
Georgians are generally supportive of mixing religion and government, according to a new Peach State Poll. The quarterly survey of public opinion conducted by UGA’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government finds that 79 percent of Georgians either strongly approve (62 percent) or mildly approve (16 percent) of allowing a nondenominational prayer in a public school ceremony, and 72 percent either strongly approve (59 percent) or mildly approve (13 percent) of displaying the Ten Commandments in a government building. In addition, one in three Georgians (33 percent) approve of posting of a verse from the Quran in a government building.

A majority of Georgians would like to see religious values have greater influence in politics and public life, but the public is somewhat ambivalent about using state funds to support programs run by religious organizations. Sixty-five percent approve of using state funds for social programs run by Christian organizations, but only 39 percent approve of the state funding social programs run by Islamic organizations. When asked about state funding of programs run by faith-based organizations generally, 47 percent say it is inappropriate to use taxpayer money in this way, whereas 40 percent say it is an appropriate use of such funds.